Submission + - Norton announces Core, a smart router to protect domestic IoT devices

Submitted by fiannaFailMan on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @03:10PM

fiannaFailMan writes: Norton has announced the launch of a smart router designed to protect connected home devices from intrusions. The Symantec-owned company says the device aims to keep safe up to 20 devices connected to it, including Windows computers, Macs, phones, tablets or any internet-of-things devices, in real time. Norton Core, shaped a little like a geodesic dome, can isolate an infected device from the rest of your network to prevent the spreading of any malware.

Submission + - LinkedIn busted in wage-theft investigation (forasach.ie)

Submitted by fiannaFailMan on Monday August 04, 2014 @08:57PM

fiannaFailMan writes: Following an investigation by the US Department of Labor, LinkedIn has agreed to pay over $3 million in overtime back wages and $2.5 million in liquidated damages to 359 former and current employees working at company branches in four states. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires companies to have record-keeping systems in place to record overtime hours worked and to ensure that employees are paid for those hours, requirements that the company was not meeting.

Submission + - Python scripting and analyzing your way to love

Submitted by fiannaFailMan on Tuesday January 21, 2014 @06:59PM

fiannaFailMan writes: Wired reports one mathematician's mission to find love online by data mining from OK Cupid and applying mathematical modeling to optimize his profile(s). His methods included using "Python scripts to riffle through hundreds of OkCupid survey questions. He then sorted female daters into seven clusters, like “Diverse” and “Mindful,” each with distinct characteristics." But the real work began when he started going on dates.

Submission + - Europe's Got Geek Talent (mercurynews.com)

Submitted by

fiannaFailMan

on Wednesday January 16, 2013 @07:18PM

fiannaFailMan writes: "Teams of scientists from across the continent are vying for a funding bonanza that could see two of them receive up to (euro) 1 billion ($1.33 billion) over 10 years to keep Europe at the cutting edge of technology.

The contest began with 26 proposals that were whittled down to six last year. Just four have made it to the final round.

They include a plan to develop digital guardian angels that would keep people safe from harm; a massive data-crunching machine to simulate social, economic and technological change on our planet; an effort to craft the most accurate computer model of the human brain to date; and a team working to find better ways to produce and employ graphene — an ultra-thin material that could revolutionize manufacturing of everything from airplanes to computer chips."

Submission + - Tokamak fusion experiment facing financial trouble (bbc.co.uk) 1

Submitted by fiannaFailMan on Wednesday June 17, 2009 @02:45AM

fiannaFailMan writes: An international plan to build a nuclear fusion reactor is being threatened by rising costs, delays and technical challenges.
Emails leaked to the BBC indicate that construction costs for the experimental fusion project called Iter have more than doubled. Some scientists also believe that the technical hurdles to fusion have become more difficult to overcome and that the development of fusion as a commercial power source is still at least 100 years away. At a meeting in Japan on Wednesday, members of the governing Iter council will review the plans and may agree to scale back the project.

Iter will be a Tokamak device, a successor to the Joint European Torus (JET) in England. Meanwhile, an experiment in fusion by laser doesn't seem to be running into the same high profile funding problems just yet.

Submission + - Silicon Valley - the new Detroit? (mercurynews.com)

Submitted by fiannaFailMan on Wednesday November 07, 2007 @09:26PM

fiannaFailMan writes: The San Jose Mercury News is speculating about Silicon Valley's potential for becoming the Detroit of a future electric car industry. Among the valley's strengths is an ability to adapt to rapidly changing business environments and develop new business models, something that the Big Three can hardly be accused of. On the downside, it's a capital-intensive business and isn't like raising $40 million and having an IPO. Apparently there are five companies in the valley already pursuing electric car technology, most notably Tesla.

Last week's announcement by Shai Agassi, a former SAP executive based in Palo Alto, that he's raised $200 million for a company that will try to revolutionize the electric car industry is the latest sign of this region's growing role in one of the hottest sectors of the automotive industry.

Submission + - Consumer technologies driving IT

Submitted by fiannaFailMan on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @03:48PM

fiannaFailMan writes: The Economist is reporting on how consumer-driven software products are increasingly making their presence felt in the corporate world. Web-based applications are now making more in-roads into IT departments despite the fears of IT managers who previously tried to block such things.

From the article: "...most IT bosses, especially at large organisations, tend to be sceptical of consumer technologies and often ban them outright. Employees, in return, tend to ignore their IT departments. Many young people, for instance, use services such as Skype to send instant messages or make free calls while in the office. FaceTime, a Californian firm that specialises in making such consumer applications safe for companies, found in a recent survey that more than half of employees in their 20s and 30s admitted to installing such software over the objections of IT staff."